A Study On Human Capital And Off-farm Employment Of Rural Labor Force

This paper mainly focuses on the relationship between human capital and off-farm employment of rural labor force. The analytical method of the paper involves theoretical analysis & empirical analysis, macro analysis and micro analysis. There are six main parts of the paper:(1) The paper builts off-farm employment models of rural labor force under macro and micro view respectively. In the view of macro, the paper builds a migration model in quarter economics, which differentiates formal model; in the view of micro, the paper builds models of off-farm employment participation and off-farm employment time, which under the hypothesis of maximization of utility.(2) The paper also builds a human capital investment decision model. The model finds that the return of human capital has a positive effect on human capital investment and the price of goods has a negative effect. In addition, institutional and cultural factors also influence the human capital investment of farmers.(3) The paper analyses the mechanism of human capital plays on off-farm work in the view of macro and micro respectively. In macro aspect, human capital influences off-farm employment from off-farm labor supply and off-farm labor need. In micro aspect, human capital influences off-farm employment from four ways: the ability of off-farm employment decision, the ability of grabbing the chance of off-farm employment, the ability of been competent for off-farm employment and the ability of off-farm employment income.(4) The paper analyses the influential factors of off-farm employment using "push-and-pull" theory, furthermore, the paper also analyses the relation of education investment,migration investment,health investment and off-farm income of farmer.(5) Using micro data, the paper empirically analyses the effect of human capital on off-farm work participation,off-farm work time,off-farm work salary. The paper gives some explanation of the results of the econometrica model.(6) Based on the conclusion of the paper, the last part gives some policy suggestion, especially for the low return of human capital, heavy burden of medical treatment, backward professional education, and weak security mechanism of off-farm employment.